In order to allow patients to refrain from significant travel to have a surgical procedure done in a hospital, we are seeing an explosion in the number of ambulatory surgery centers or ASCs. Many people prefer to have surgery close to home and preferably in their own community.
Hospitals are now intertwined with real estate companies and developers to build and either purchase or lease the property to allow for easier accessibility for various procedures. Additionally, hospital-based procedures tend to be more expensive for health insurance companies and cannot attain the same efficiency as ASCs, which tend to do better with high volumes. The real estate developers benefit from the fact that hospitals tend to be reliable clients who will be long-term tenants. As tenants, hospitals save time and money on the logistics involved when they are not tenants. By logistics, I am referring to coordinating staff travel from the hospital, maintenance, and security. So, for the patient, medical staff, hospitals, and real estate developers, outpatient ambulatory surgery centers seem to benefit everyone.
One of the largest fields which seem to be successfully transitioning to ASCs is orthopedics. ASCs seem to work well with both simple procedures to major ones such as joint replacements. I had an orthopedic/neurosurgical procedure in an ASC and thought everything went well. In reading some articles about ASCs, I did notice one issue which gives me pause when reading between the lines. No physicians or clinical staff were interviewed. It was just business administrators and executives. My main concern is that the view is focused on procedure efficiency and increased patient volume. I view medicine from what is in the patient’s best interest and not the business individuals. I read how efficient the ASCs are, but I did not notice an administrator speaking about patient safety. Personally, I felt safe and had a great experience. My main goal is to see safety and patient care as the priority, and as long as this is addressed, I am confident we are doing the right thing.
